Mine are pretty lame, but I'll start it off:

1. I've played Tunnels & Trolls with creator Ken St. Andre;

2. I met Erol Otus at GenCon (great guy, too) and got some signed stuff from him;

3. I pissed off Greg Stafford. That was just the other day ...

4. I've interviewed for a job with Steve Jackson;

5. I once got a nasty letter from prolific RPG author Aaron Allston, back when he was working for $5 an hour at SJG. He's now a New York Times bestselling author.

Like I said, pretty lame. I'm sure the good stories will come before the end of the weekend, though.

Have been at the same table having dinner with Bob Bledsaw.

Have met Brom while waiting for an elevator

Have watched only briefly Gary Gygax DM a game (would have been great to be sitting in that adventure).

Think thats it besides seeing artists/writers at signings.

ShaneG.

ExTSR wrote:I am able to hang out online with -- and occasionally meet at conventions -- folks here and at DF who treat me as a fellow gamer/collector and real person instead of a Famous Author. ::blech::


But I played folk music at the White House during the Nixon administration, once.  

Have to live with it, Frank!  

What was your most interesting gaming convention moment?

My list:

1)  I got Gary Gygax's autograph at GenCon 2001, while watching him demonstrate a game and not stare at a beautiful woman.  (I did.)

2)  I got jerked around by Steve Winter.

3)  I whined about a deal with Greg Stafford.

4)  I exchanged emails with Kerry Lloyd's son, Conan.

5)  I just missed a job at TSR (me and one other candidate).

6)  I spent a couple days with James Ward planning a defunct game.

7)  I exchanged friendly emails with fellow teacher Tim Kask, and he gave me one of the older copies of the original Monster Manual.

 I bid on Castle Perilous against Frank Mentzer.

9)  I taught high school history to Michael Stackpole's cousin.

10)  I edited a project by Carl Sargent.

11)  I got an acceptance letter and a rejection letter from Roger Moore.

12)  Tadashi Ehara once answered my emails.

13)  There is no number thirteen.

Mark  

Xaxaxe wrote:

MShipley88 wrote:6)  I spent a couple days with James Ward planning a defunct game.

Mark,

From the glory days or the Fast Forward Games days?

It was in 2001, the time of Fast Forward Games....although this was not a Fast Forward project.  

Mark  

This is an off topic strand, so go ahead.

It is possible to see WOTC's purchase of TSR as extending the life of that company.

An incredibly good use of company money...the D&D name and license is destined to make money far into the future.

I don't really understand why Microsoft, practically right next door, did not snap up WOTC before Hasbro.

Mark  

My claims to fame are a lot less spectacular...

1. I've exchanged e-mails with Gary Thompson (One of my clients.)
2. I've had a rejection letter from Kim Mills (Senior highschool. She was a babe.)
3. I've said 'hi' to Frank (Deadlord).
4. I've been to TSB on the highstreet (Sorry. No pictures.)

Exchanged a bunch of emails with Gary Gygax about the Black Resovoir story I found.  Also won a bunch of his stuff from a pre-Ebay auction he had in thelate 90's
    Bought a couple of Divine Right games from Frank Mentzer after that self same auction...he ended up winning about a dozen of them and I was the runner up bidder, he very nicely sold me a couple (so both my brother and I both have Divine Right games that belonged to EGG AND Frank...Cool!)
    Have a commissioned drawing from the great Roslof.
    Exchanged a bunch of emails and sold a bunch of Robert E. Howard collections to artist Rafael Kayanan (well, not gaming oriented, but fantasy oriented...)
    Had questions answered through email by Roger Moore about Greyhawk.
    On an online forum insulted a TSR staffer over what I thought was a shoddy product only to have him email me and apologize and explain WHY the product was shoddy (he blamed the really onerous deadlines he had been given for the project). I felt like an ass afterwards and unfortunately cannot remember the staffer's name (this was sometime in the mid 90's) but I must say he was a nice guy to actually take the time to email me and offer an explanation and not just say "Efff you, fanboy".
    I've spoken to P.N. Elrod many times at gaming conventions over the years (she's written a lot of TSR novels over the years as well as other horror/SF stuff). Very nice and gracious lady, my wife actually talked to her more than I did at one convention when they discussed vampire novels (Elrod has written Ravenloft novels of Strahd and has a vampire detective series of her own).  You have to understand my wife is a gaming illiterate so it was nice to actually see her show SOME interest in something at a gaming convention....

Pretty much all interactions have been through email.  I live in Texas, I don't get out much it seems...

Mike B.

ExTSR wrote:

Badmike wrote:Bought a couple of Divine Right games from Frank Mentzer after that self same auction...he ended up winning about a dozen of them and I was the runner up bidder, he very nicely sold me a couple

Oh yeah, I remember that. Couldn't talk Gary out of auctioning the stuff himself so I swooped in and bought up a helluva lot of it. All that stuff belonged to Dave Dimery, friend of Gary's and TSR's PR head for a while. Samples to be given away but stuck in a closet somewhere and unearthed after many years.

The shrink'd original DR's went for about $105 each, iirc, and I sold most of them for $300 or so, several at Origins. This was before the reissue of course. Got a couple shrink'd 1st print Greyhawk folios too, in exceptionally untattered condition.

The copies of DR we got are still sw and unopened. Possibly some of the last SW copies in existance, you'd have to think.  Now that I have the 25th anniversary version, I will never will open them up.  I seem to remember winning a lot of other oddball SW stuff like Star Frontiers and Boot Hill modules in that same auction, pretty cheap too if I remember.

Mike B.